Guild Wars 2 Endgame: You Actually Get to Eat the Carrot

[MissCleo]

Since we speak of carrots

That... was... amazing. Thanks.

[Darkademic]

Very good read enjoyed it

Though one thing that really bothered me being an engineer (and mathematician) :P ... Your use of "statistically" giving reference to boss/player stats, stats and statistics are two compeletely different things.

"statistically superior enemies" - is someone like Steve Hawkins, his knowledge of mathematics and statistics makes him a worthy opponent in Maths club

Sorry it was awkward for me to read it that way and bothered me a bit, though i understand your point. Not that it really matters, most ppl probs didn't even realise and i'm terrible at teh english language myself

Haha, thanks, I'll add it to my list of amendments. I'm pretty pedantic about language myself, so I appreciate it.

[Deleted]

Haha, thanks, I'll add it to my list of amendments. I'm pretty pedantic about language myself, so I appreciate it.

Ah good, i was worried that i sounded like a jerk, jsut thought i'd mention it but glad you appreciated it. But yh think you hit the nail on the head for me with your article though, been thinking about it more...

my only experience with a MMO for a substantial amount of time is WoW and i'm looking forward to fresh content where i don't have to follow the usual "plot" of a new expansion:

1. XXXXXX Expansion comes out!
2. Purchase
3. Cap lvl and your rep to get your shoulder enchant (gotta get that shoulder enchant or my app will fail!!!)
4. Grind dungeons and rep for blues/epics
5. Wipefest on current raid content
6. Wipefest on HC's, and bazzar achievements... erm... for a title?
7. New patch!? OMG repeat step 4-6
8. XXXXXXXX Expansion comes out, go to step 1.

---------- Post added 2012-02-07 at 12:20 AM ----------

{Subject: GW2} ... but the game does not revolve around endlessly increasing numbers to give the illusion of progression.

In Guild Wars 2 you actually get to eat the carrot.

I love this bit too!

[theredviola]

Great article, sir. The title is very catchy, the body of the work is well written in laying out what Guild Wars 2 does and offers explanations as to why systems work the way they do. However, what I find to be the best part of your work is that you force the reader to think what -they- consider to be fun at "end game. You made the reader think.

I'm sure you're not the first to do this. I'm sure other articles that have done this did not spell it out as blatantly as you just did, but I liked being forced to think. Thanks for the good read, I'll be sharing this with friends.

[Veldril]

One thing I have been thinking about is what defines the term "raid". Is it the size of players? Or is it the difficulty of encounters?

If it is the size of players, then the next question is that are we being taught that raid can exist as a 10+ contents? I think this is because WoW is a staple of this genre so people tend to automatically associate the word "raid" with WoW's model. But SWTOR has 8-man raids too so a raid could also be less than 10 people. So that should mean raids can be less than ten people too.

So it leads to the next point, if raid is defined by the difficulty of the content, then can the 5-man dungeon be called raid if it has the same difficulty and complexity as a raid? For example, if Zhaitan is as hard or complex as Lich King (or Heroic Lich King), then shouldn't Zhaitan's dungeon also be a raid too? If it's true, then an "endgame raid" could also exist as a five-man dungeon with enough difficulty to make only good players completed it.

As for gear progression, I think the encounters can be decided in scaling level without scaling in gears' levels too. By making bosses harder (i.e. more mechanics that needs to be avoided) players move along the "progression", people have to become better instead of farming gears in order to complete the content. Increasing in gears' stats would make contents easier but it would not be necessary if the players are good enough. And I think making a horizontal progression would not diminish the value of fighting later bosses at all. Imagine that you and your four other friends are the only people who have the Ebony Armor set because the set only drops from Zhaitan, people would be admire and envious and would try to get it too.

[Fencers]

Raids are just larger than default team size. If the game defines default team size as say, 5 players, then allows 5+ player to join a larger team size that 5+ team size is a raid. Even if there are just 6 people in the party.

Difficulty is irrelevant to that point. Raids are simply the tipping point the game defines as larger than X.

[Deleted]

Since we speak of carrots

Can't help myself from laughing a little every time I see this.

[Darkademic]

Great article, sir. The title is very catchy, the body of the work is well written in laying out what Guild Wars 2 does and offers explanations as to why systems work the way they do. However, what I find to be the best part of your work is that you force the reader to think what -they- consider to be fun at "end game. You made the reader think.

I'm sure you're not the first to do this. I'm sure other articles that have done this did not spell it out as blatantly as you just did, but I liked being forced to think. Thanks for the good read, I'll be sharing this with friends.

Thanks, glad you liked it and that it came across that way. My aim was to simply present a case rather than shove an opinion down people's throats.

[Zenjie]

Bumping for you.

Perfect article, it makes me think and you got it all right.
It makes me want to play GW2 moaar!!

I guess, ill save my money to spend Bad-ass PC to enjoy GW2 much more!! With all ultra settings so on! =D

[kanezfan]

Since we speak of carrots

Love it. Cannot wait for this game. It's going to be great. It will be the one to bring balance to the for.. oh wait no it's like Neo and.... Yeah I think it's going to be the best MMO ever.

[Mif]

I guess, ill save my money to spend Bad-ass PC to enjoy GW2 much more!! With all ultra settings so on! =D

Food for thought: With a subscription MMO you pay $15/month x12 months = $180/year

So with the money you save playing GW2 instead of an subscription MMO, you can afford to buy a graphics card capable of playing GW2 on ultra.

[Rist]

I liked the points you made; and I really think Anet will do a great job keeping the explorable dungeons exciting in between content with the random encounters and the multiple paths you can do. WvWvW is also going to be a great experience to keep everyone busy (if you like pvp that is) epic battles 100v100+++ for the castles! Fantastic!

[papajohn4]

what motivates me...well

1)Beautiful Characters (I really hope they will make characters as Aion as they said)
2)Beautiful Armor/Weapons
3)Enjoyable combat (combat animations plays big part here)
4)Challenging leveling (not one button fest, but fight tough mobs which makes you use lots of your abilities and actually have a chance to also die while leveling)
5)Huge and Beautiful World (Lotro is the perfect example here, too bad the combat there and characters are terrible)

give me these and I don't care about raids :P Actually I don't care for anything just want to walk around kill stuff and level characters...

you may ask why not Aion, simple because the number 5 is completely missing..although I played Aion for a long time the lack of huge beautiful world along with the lack of pve server (I like pvp but I hate Gank)...Also aion may have a carrot but still once you get it no one take it away and put another one in place every 3-4 months..once I got good gear at 50 and then went to 55 and still for very very long time I had my level 50 set...

I don't know if GW2 can offer these 5 things and I will never be sure until I play it...at least for the combat..so far the screenshots I get with Characters in looking good but nothing like Aion (although they said character creation is not 100% ready, I still put high hopes here) but they will not make not to play the game, like Lotro, Rift for example.

EDIT: Making your character stronger and stronger isn't bad thing when it is slow with no resets...also obsolete content isn't that bad also..its not bad to feel overpower for a while..it also makes sense, you are stronger and the places that where dangerous once are now walk in the park for you..I always enjoyed to farm old content for stuff..that said, I don't say that it is needed for me to play the game but I don't also see it so bad..

[theredviola]

Thanks, glad you liked it and that it came across that way. My aim was to simply present a case rather than shove an opinion down people's throats.

Which I thank-you for. It's sad that people make posts under the guise of "making someone think" only to shove their opinion down someone's throat. You presented it in a very "take it or leave it" manor. +1 internets.

[mikencarly]

Look like i wont be playing gw2 then im sorry to me it sounds awful.

[Darkademic]

Look like i wont be playing gw2 then im sorry to me it sounds awful.

~170 responses across 3 different sites and this (I believe) is the first negative comment about the game. I was expecting a lot more to be honest (as I made clear in the article, I don't think GW2 will cater to absolutely everyone).

If you could be more specific then I might be able to give a more useful response.

[Guilegamesh]

Interesting read, but I agree with Fencers in that is sounds more like WoW Endgame vs. GW2 Endgame. I like to think, like you said at one point in your article, that GW2 has no endgame. I see the game as something akin to a single player RPG open world RPG where I play the game to experience the world. I'm not a fan of having certain types of content unaccesible to me until I reach an arbitrary level, and that is one of the reasons I don't play any MMOs at the moment. Hopefully I will be right.

Food for thought: With a subscription MMO you pay $15/month x12 months = $180/year

So with the money you save playing GW2 instead of an subscription MMO, you can afford to buy a graphics card capable of playing GW2 on ultra.

That card is amazing, expecially for the price. It runs a few points below a 560 TI and is availiable for from $50-$70 cheaper. If anyone is planning on getting one I suggest waiting, with the new series being released soon the price is bound to drop even more. Also, most version are 9-10" long, so you might need a new case as well if you don't have a mid-ATX. Sorry, didn't mean to gush, just got that card and I absolutely love it.

[Spraxle]

Good read and as theredviola said, it makes you ask the question of what do you want from the end game.

When I started asking myself that I thought back to my days in WoW. I originally began raiding because I wanted to slay the giant baddies with a huge group and see all of the different 'lairs' as it were. But as time went on that mind set went out the window. I don't know where it shifted exactly but I found as I kept raiding and raiding I hated it and the people around me in the raids more and more. It wasn't about fun, it was about clearing Boss X in Time Y or get screamed at. After a year of glazed over eyes and screaming I said bye to raiding. I picked up SWToR (this isn't a bash) in the hopes that I would be able to reconnect with people and PLAY the game but that got shot out the window and when I hit 50 I realized, I don't care about doing Raid X for Gear Y that will be totally worthless in 2-4 months.

So yes, good read. It made me want to play GW2 more then I did. The past few days/weeks I have been questioning if I would get into the game. Trying to find out info about the different classes and such. One thing that really attracted me was the 'pretty characters', the dress up effect as it were. Sorry I am rambling pointlessly now. >_>

[Hoticehunter]

In Guild Wars 2 you actually get to eat the carrot.

From what it sounds like, it would be more accurate to say that there is no carrot, rather than that you get to eat the carrot. If there's no "raid gear" at level 50, then there's no getting stronger after you hit level cap, and iirc, that's the way it was in GW1 as well. You hit cap and then... you had the best gear in the game. The look of the gear was the only thing that changed. That just seems silly to me. There should always be a path to make your character stronger no matter what level you are.

[Mif]

There should always be a path to make your character stronger no matter what level you are.

Gear progression doesn't ever make your character stronger in relation to relevant content, all it does it make older content irrelevant.